Now expanding into Berrien County is a Michigan Department of Health and Human Services program that seeks to help struggling families stay together.
Department Director Elizabeth Hertel tells us the Family Impact Team project, or FIT, embeds family resource specialists with child protection and foster care staff so they can help families apply for benefits and other economic support.
“If there is a call and an allegation and Child Protective Services comes out to investigate, they will actually have the family resource specialist with them to go and speak to the family and the CPS investigator will do the work that they’re supposed to do,” Hertel said. “At the same time, the family resource specialist can say, ‘Hey, are there things that you need to be able to maybe better care for your children, stay together safely, that you need to be able to maybe better care for your children in your home together?'”
Hertel says FIT started nine months ago as a pilot in 12 counties and has helped more than 1,000 families by connecting them with things like food assistance, Medicaid, housing assistance, and gas cards.
The program is now being expanded to Berrien and ten other counties with plans to eventually expand into all Michigan counties.
